Ten years in prison for divorce?

May 11, 2011

Svetlana Smetanina

Source: PhotoXpress

Public protest help scuttle an absurd law on parental rights - is there a future for Russia's civil society?

In
late March, the Russian public, especially parents of underage children, were
literally in shock. State Duma deputies had prepared a new draft law that, if passed,
would dramatically alter the rights of divorced parents. According to the draft
law, divorced parents who prevented their spouse from seeing their children by
taking them abroad or to another city would be subject to harsh punishment—10
years in prison. No more and no less.

Your
initial response might be: “That’s absurd!” But it’s not that simple. The
Russian legislators naturally claimed that the appearance of this strange new
law was prompted solely by regard for the children’s best interests, and indeed
there is some rationality in their arguments. Today, 50 percent of all Russian
marriages end in divorce and in many cases, parents use the children as pawns
in their negotiations. For examples: “If you don’t give me the apartment, I
won’t let you see our child,” or: “If you want the dacha, the children stay
with me.” When the marriages of wealthy New Russians began falling apart, the
situation became still more critical. The problem is that in 95 percent of all
cases, the Russian courts award custody of the children to the mother. Needless
to say, wealthy fathers are not always in agreement with such a decision. Often
they simply take their children away illegally. And then their armed bodyguards
don’t let the mothers within firing distance of their fortress-like houses.

Clearly,
parents who steal their children from each other and use them as bargaining
chips need to be punished in some way. But why with such severity and all of a
sudden? Under Russian law, 10-year sentences are meted out to rapists and drug
traffickers. And now perfectly normal citizens, whose entire guilt consists of
their inability to share custody of their children, are potentially subject to
the same. As though locking up a father or mother for 10 years was also “in the
best interest of the child.”

No
wonder this ham-fisted initiative sparked immediate protest. “If I take my son
abroad on vacation without asking my ex-husband’s permission simply because I
can’t find him, does that mean I can be put in prison for ‘the illegal transfer
of a child?’” an indignant mother wrote recently in her blog. “In that case,
why have children at all if in future you can be blackmailed with the threat of
prison?” agreed another. Moreover, the vagueness of the formulation “preventing
contacts with a child” means that it can be applied to all sorts of situations.
A former husband turns up in the middle of the night, and not particularly
sober, to see his son, so his ex-wife doesn’t let him in: that is already grounds
for putting her in prison.

A website
created to protest the law, called “No to mothers on trial,” collected 15,000
signatures in a matter of days on an appeal to ask the speaker of the State
Duma not to pass such an ill-considered draft law. Outside the entrance to the
Duma, a demonstration took place: Several pairs of “newlyweds” dressed up in
wedding clothes and shackles distributed leaflets with the demand that this
“family Gulag” not be allowed. Many famous lawyers spoke out against the
initiative in no uncertain terms. Most of the mass media supported public
opinion and severely criticized the deputies’ legislative ardor.

The
draft law’s initiators admitted that this outpouring of strong public
resistance came as a complete surprise, and in the end, none of them had the
will to fight their way through it. As a result, this new draft law did not
make it even to the second reading, scheduled for late April. Instead of prison
terms, parents who keep their children from each other will have to pay a fine on
the first offense; a second offense is punishable by five days in jail.

The
main lesson in all this is that Russian citizens are perfectly capable of standing
up for their rights—although it’s true that they are interested only when their
vital interests are at stake. If my ex-husband can have me thrown in prison
for no reason at all, excuse me, I can’t allow that — I’ll personally go to the
barricades!

Here’s
an example from a slightly different sphere, but still relevant to the subject.
All last year there were public protests in Moscow against the construction of a
highway to St. Petersburg that would run through a suburban Moscow forest. In
this case, both the prime minister and the president stepped in to sort things
out. It cannot be said that the defenders of the forest were entirely
successful. The new toll road will run through the forest as planned. But the appetites
of the builders were significantly curbed in that they received permission only
to construct the actual road. The roadside construction originally planned was
ruled out. The main result, however, is something else. As a Moscow bureaucrat
put it, the story of the suburban Moscow forest taught them a lot. Now, before
beginning construction of another highway, they will have to consider public
opinion, since no one wants another huge scandal.

It
looks as though a civil society in Russia is beginning to grow up. That means
that bureaucrats who launch senseless projects and deputies who draft absurd
laws will have to take that society into consideration.